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Our future, our universe, and other weighty topics

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

"Feeling the Future" Study Replicated, as Skeptics Fume

Several
years ago Cornell professor emeritus Daryl Bem published the paper
Feeling the Future in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The
paper reported the results of controlled experiments which seemed to
suggest the existence of precognition, the ability of humans to
detect the future in a paranormal way. There were voices of outrage that an Ivy League
university could have been involved with such a finding, which was
denounced as pseudoscience. In the next months skeptics trumpeted one
or two unsuccessful attempts to replicate the experiments.

A
few weeks ago, however, Bem and others published a meta-analysis
looking at 90 different experiments on precognition done in 33
laboratories. They found that Bem's sensational experiments had been
well replicated. It seems that there are two ways of doing Bem's
experiments, a “fast protocol” and a “slow protocol.” It seems that when
you use the fast protocol, trying things just as Bem did, the effect
does reproduce well. The paper found that to explain the results as a
coincidence, one would have to believe in a coincidence with a chance
of about 1 in 10 billion.

Bem's
original “Feeling the Future” study was not at all a
unique bolt-from-the-blue, but merely something in the same vein as quite a few previous studies (and many human experiences) indicating that
something like precognition can occur. A particularly astonishing
case is related here. Other
similar experiments have shown a phenomenon called presentiment, an
anomalous unexplained tendency of the human body to react to a
stimulus before the stimulus has been presented. Here is a link to a meta-analysis of such experiments, showing an effect extremely unlikely to have occurred by chance.

I
personally don't like the idea of precognition, and prefer to believe
that it doesn't exist, simply because it is easier to understand a
universe in which time behaves like a roll of film in a movie can,
with a nice clear separation between each frame in the movie and the
frame that came before it. But I don't let my conceptual preferences
guide my assumptions about whether precognition is likely or
possible.

How
have psi skeptics reacted to the latest meta-analysis showing that Bem's research has been well replicated? A typical
unthoughtful knee-jerk reaction is found in this post.

The
post exhibits the following characteristics:

There
is no attempt at all to address the substance of the meta-analysis
paper. There is no mention of any specific flaws that the writer has
discovered in the research.

The
writer resorts to name-calling, referring to the paper as
pseudoscience. He does not say anything to back up such a claim.

The
writer very emotionally employs the technique of “character
assassination by comparison,” the technique of trying to debunk
someone by comparing him to people of low repute. Daryl Bem, a
distinguished Ivy League professor emeritus, is indirectly compared
to “climate change deniers, young-earth
creationists, flat earthers, reptilianists, scientific racists,
people who believe that women who are raped won't get pregnant, and
Holocaust Deniers.”

The writer claims that
“the methodological unsoundness of Daryl Bem's work has been amply
demonstrated,” but gives no statements, link or reference to back
up that claim.

The writer does not even
provide a link to the meta-analysis he is attacking (apparently not
wanting anyone else to look at the evidence).

There are numerous things
that provoke this type of ire from skeptics: reports of near-death
experiences, evidence for extra-sensory perception, evidence for
precognition, the astonishing power of the placebo effect, deathbed
apparitions, ghost sightings, alternative healing methods,
astonishing unexplained recoveries from disease or injury, sightings
of UFOs, and evidence that the universe seems to be fine-tuned to
allow the existence of intelligent observers. Some peer-reviewed papers that discuss some of these topics can be found here. Perhaps the only thing
these items have in common is that they seem to provoke the ire of a
certain narrow-minded group which wants to act as a kind of thought
police, zealously keeping our minds inside a little square with
borders they have constructed.

When faced with evidence that
conflicts with their cherished worldview, reductionist materialists
all too often seem to follow the following general guidelines:

If the evidence is a
first-hand account, say that it is “merely anecdotal,” and imply
that it should therefore be ignored (even if the same phenomenon has
been reported by many different reliable witnesses over very long
periods of time).

Accuse the observers of
having had hallucinations (even if their accounts are highly ordered
and consistent with each other, and even if they have no signs of
pathology or relevant drug use).

If the evidence is
something that cannot be reproduced in a laboratory, say that the
evidence is “not reproducible,” and that it therefore has no
merit (despite the fact that numerous important scientific phenomena
such as cosmic gamma ray bursts and the Big Bang cannot be
reproduced in the laboratory).

If the evidence can
actually be reproduced in the laboratory, with repeated successes,
claim that the evidence is based on fraud (using basically the same
“they're all fakers” technique used by global warming deniers).

Make vague accusations
of methodical unsoundness or mathematical errors, usually without
substantiating the claims (or back up the claims with tangled
Bayesian reasoning that no one will be likely to understand).

Engage in vague
name-calling by calling the research pseudoscience, or, more
aggressively, call the researcher an enemy of science (even if he is
a science enthusiast or has published many scientific papers).

Imply that the
researcher is a careless or easily-duped fool, even if he is an
ultra-methodical person with a PhD.

Attempt to discredit the
findings by linking them with various disreputable superstitious
phenomena such as astrology. Try to link the findings with extremist
or fringe religious beliefs, even if there is no evidence to support
any such association.

Simply say that the
finding was observed because of an incredibly improbable coincidence
(a claim that can conveniently be made an unlimited number of times,
with little chance that anyone will calculate the total
microscopic improbability of all the coincidences being imagined).

Flatly state that there is no evidence whatsoever for the phenomenon, even if evidence for it has been carefully and methodically accumulated by numerous researchers for more than a hundred years.

If all else fails,
suggest the possibility of a multiverse to explain the evidence
(even though this leads to a “multiplicationism” position that
is the opposite of the reductionism that is being defended).

These
types of techniques may prove successful, but at the cost of
constructing a kind of “reality filter” that may cause you to
ignore some of the most important things man may observe or discover.

Postscript: See this link for Honorton and Ferrari's meta-analysis of forced choice precognition experiments done between 1935 and 1987. Examining 309 experiments carried out by 62 investigators involving 50,000 participants in two million trials, Honorton and Ferrari found an overall effect with a chance probability of about 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

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All posts on this blog are authored by Mark Mahin, and are protected by copyright. Copyright 2013-2014 by Mark Mahin. All rights reserved. Any resemblance between any fictional character and any real person is purely coincidental.